Thomas Rhett Wouldn’t Recommend Blake Shelton As a Tutor

When asked if Blake Shelton was a good tutor Thomas Rhett flatly states: "Not really." Perhaps more interesting is that Shelton was called upon to help the young singer with his studies in the first place.

Hanging with stars like Shelton and Reba McEntire was just part of the singer's upbringing. His dad is Rhett Akins, a country hitmaker in the 1990s. "It became normal," Rhett says during a feature on NBC's Sunday Today with Willie Geist, "and looking back at it today it's just so funny ... because I'm opening a show for (Shelton) but he was helping me with homework 10 years ago."

The nearly eight-minute long video includes shots from a studio where Rhett is busy working on his next studio album, the follow-up to Tangled Up. He talks openly about his (bad, short-lived) punk rock band High Heeled Flip Flops, his wife, his hip-hop influences and his childhood. Rhett also discusses his upcoming Home Team Tour, but the 2017 Country Jam Colorado headliner has something else cooking that he'll share at the Today website on Tuesday.

Kelsea Ballerini, Ryan Hurd and Russell Dickerson are set to join Rhett on the 2017 Home Team Tour, beginning Feb. 23 in Saginaw, Mich. and running through an April show in Nashville. His next studio album will be his third, following the platinum certified Tangled Up album, a project that features the Grammy nominated "Die a Happy Man." In 2015 Rhett told Taste of Country how his wife influenced that song, and his entire album.